Preserving Local History: Bob Breen and the Building of the St. Lawrence Seaway

When the St. Lawrence Seaway was built in the mid-1950s, it forever transformed the geography, communities, and riverways of northern New York and southeastern Ontario. Behind the massive engineering feats were the young workers who moved the earth to make it happen.

My father, Bob Breen (1936–2026), was one of those young workers. As a young man, he operated massive Euclid earth-moving trucks, working right on the front lines of the Seaway construction project. In April 2016, when he was nearly 80 years old, Dad sat down with a PhD candidate researcher to record his recollections while examining historical pre-construction maps alongside modern nautical charts. Today, I am sharing both his original oral history interview and a video overview created to bring his story to life.

The Original Oral History Recording

In the recording, "Seaway Interview Part 1," Dad walks through a 1953 pre-construction map to explain the radical alterations made along the St. Lawrence River corridor near Morristown, Cardinal, and Iroquois.

Key stories and historical details documented in his interview include:

Reshaping the Shoreline: How heavy fill operations known as "MK #1" and "MK #2" used excavated earth to form present-day Lisbon Beach.

Dredging & Channel Engineering: How river channels were deepened to 28–36 feet and islands like Chimney Island and Galop Island were cut back to manage river currents for ocean-going ships.

Community Impacts: Memories of local riverfront camps being moved inland prior to flooding, as well as the 50-year land-use restrictions enforced along the shoreline by the New York Power Authority.

🎧 Click here to listen to the full original interview on YouTube

The Video Overview

To help share Dad's firsthand knowledge with a wider audience, I created a short animated Video Overview based on the recording. The video highlights the geographical transformations, engineering feats, and community changes that Dad described in his interview.

Honoring a Legacy

Dad passed away in February 2026, but his firsthand accounts, voice, and memories remain a vital record of our region's history. Preserving these stories ensures that future generations will understand the hard work, skill, and personal memories behind the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway.